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Ep. 37 Jason Emerson, "Giant in the Shadows" Nov 23, 2021

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Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary were the parents of four boys. Only one – Robert – lived beyond his eighteenth birthday. Author Jason Emerson spent nearly a decade researching the 82-plus years of Robert Lincoln's life, including his time as a Union soldier, minister to Great Britain, Secretary of War, and president of the Pullman Car Company. Mr. Emerson is the author of "Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln."

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Ep. 36 Walter Pincus, "Blown to Hell" Nov 16, 2021

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From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. government conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, a chain of islands and coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean that had been inhabited for thousands of years. Walter Pincus, longtime national security reporter for the Washington Post and current national security columnist for the Cipher Brief, talks about the tests and the fate of the Marshallese people who had to deal with the fallout. Mr. Pincus tells the story in his latest book "Blown to Hell: America's Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders."

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Ep. 35 Edward Moser, "The Lost History of the Capitol" Nov 09, 2021

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Edward Moser has been a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and a writer for the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." He currently works as a tour guide, historian, and author. We spoke to Mr. Moser about his latest book, "The Lost History of the Capitol," an account of the many bizarre, tragic, and violent episodes around the U.S. Capitol Building since 1790.

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Ep. 34 Amity Shlaes on Calvin Coolidge's Autobiography Nov 02, 2021

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"It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man," wrote President Calvin Coolidge in his autobiography, originally published in 1929. An expanded and annotated version of that book, which historian Craig Fehrman calls "the forgotten classic of presidential writing," has recently been published by ISI Books. Amity Shlaes, chair of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and co-editor of the new edition of the autobiography, joins us to talk about the book and its importance today.

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Ep. 33 Mike Duncan "Hero of Two Worlds" Oct 26, 2021

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Frenchman the Marquis de Lafayette came to America two years after the start of the American Revolution and was promptly made a major general in the Continental Army by George Washington. The year was 1777 and Lafayette, an aristocrat with no military experience, was 19. He later returned to France and helped launch the French Revolution. History podcaster Mike Duncan, author of "Hero of Two Worlds," joined us to talk about Lafayette's life and fight for liberty on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Ep. 32 Keith Richburg, Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong Oct 19, 2021

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Keith Richburg, a native of Detroit, has been a print journalist for nearly his entire life. During his 30 years at the Washington Post he reported from countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He is currently the director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. We chatted with Mr. Richburg about his career, his life in Hong Kong, China, the United States, and more.

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Ep. 31 Nathaniel Philbrick, "Travels with George" Oct 12, 2021

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After he became president in 1789, George Washington visited all thirteen former colonies to talk to citizens about the United States and what it meant to be an American. In 2018, historian Nathaniel Philbrick, along with his wife and dog, set out to retrace Washington's journey to find out how much has changed since then. He chronicled the trip in a new book, "Travels with George." We talked to Mr. Philbrick about Washington's journey and legacy and what he learned from following in Washington's footsteps over two centuries later.

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Ep. 30 Erik Larson, "No One Goes Alone" Oct 05, 2021

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Erik Larson is the author six nationally bestselling nonfiction books, including "The Devil in the White City," which was on bestseller lists for years and "The Splendid and the Vile," published in 2020. His latest, available only as an audiobook, is a work of fiction, a ghost story based in 1905 called "No One Goes Alone." Mr. Larson joined us to talk about the new audiobook, his previous books, being critiqued by his wife, teaching, and more.

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Ep. 29 Craig Whitlock, "The Afghanistan Papers" Sep 28, 2021

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In 2019, through FOIA requests and lawsuits, the Washington Post obtained hundreds of interviews conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) for its Lessons Learned Program. The interviews showed that behind the scenes, U.S. military and government officials in Afghanistan presented a far gloomier picture of the war and reconstruction efforts than was presented to the American public by officials in Washington. Washington Post investigative reporter Craig Whitlock, author of "The Afghanistan Papers," joins us to talk about the Post's efforts to obtain the SIGAR interviews, the war in Afghanistan, his reporting on the U.S. Navy's "Fat Leonard" scandal, and more.

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Ep. 28 Kathleen Smith, "Moscow 1956" Sep 21, 2021

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On February 25, 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in which he denounced the crimes, bad decisions, and cult of personality of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, who had died three years earlier. Georgetown University professor Kathleen Smith, author of "Moscow 1956," joined us to talk about the speech, what Khrushchev hoped to achieve with it, and what it eventually led to.

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